Archive for the ‘Chen Shui-bian’ Category

Taipei – Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian on Friday at a reception at the Vatican embassy in Taipei urged Pope Benedict XVI to condemn China’s crackdown in Tibet. “China’s bloody crackdown on Tibetan people last month has shocked the world. Hereby I would like to call on His Holiness the Pope to condemn violence, and to encourage the search for a solution with the aim of protecting peace,” Chen said at the event to mark the third anniversary of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s becoming the Pope.

Chen Shui-bian
陳水扁

“I would also urge China to improve human rights and protect freedom of religious belief, to remove missiles against Taiwan, and ensure cross-straits peace and regional stability,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Taiwan voters elect a successor to President Chen Shui-bian later this month, their self-ruled island will get a fresh start in vital ties with the United States that have deteriorated on Chen’s watch.

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (L) holds up his pledge during a meeting with aborigines in Taipei March 7, 2008.(Nicky Loh/Reuters)

What the March 22 vote will not change, however, is a complex tangle which has seen China boosting its military readiness to enforce its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, even as the United States seeks closer ties with Beijing despite commitment under its own laws to help defend the island.

“There is a problem with cross-strait relations: it’s much less stable than one would think,” said Dan Blumenthal, a former Pentagon official and China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think-tank.

HANOI, February 3 (Itar-Tass) – Vietnam resolutely denounced a visit by head of the Taiwan administration Chen Shui-bian to the disputable Spratly Archipelago in the South China Sea, says a statement by spokesman of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Le Dzung, circulated here on Sunday.

The diplomat’s statement was Hanoi’s response to the landing on Saturday by a military transport plane S-130 Hercules (aboard which Chen turned to be) at Taiping, one of the largest islands of the archipelago, where Taiwan completed construction of a runway last month.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian views a memorial on the island Taiping Dao, west of the Philippines. (Military News Agency Of Taiwan Via Associated Press)

“Such actions violate Vietnam’s sovereign right to these territories, help to whip up tension and aggravate the situation in the region,” Le Dzung stated. He warned that Taiwan would have to shoulder all the responsibility for negative consequences which can be provoked by this move. “Vietnam insists that the Taiwan side should stop such actions and refrain from them in future,” the spokesman stressed.

Several countries of the Asian region have been engaged for many years in an endless dispute on sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel islands, on whose shelf can be considerable reserves of oil and minerals. Their claims to the territories are simultaneously voiced by Vietnam, Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines.

Vietnam’s position on this question boils down to the following: Hanoi “has sufficient historic and legal grounds, substantiating its irrefutable sovereignty over these islands”.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party won a landslide victory in legislative elections Saturday, dealing a humiliating blow to the government’s hardline China policies two months before a presidential poll.

President Chen Shui-bian, who has been criticized for aggravating relations with China by promoting policies to formalize Taiwan’s de facto independence, resigned as chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party immediately after the extent of the defeat became clear.

The Pentagon’s latest estimate of Chinese missile deployment opposite Taiwan is that there are now more than 1,000 missiles aimed at Taiwan.
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“China has deployed roughly 1,000 mobile CSS-6 and CSS-7 short-range ballistic missiles to garrisons opposite Taiwan,” said one knowledgeable defense official.
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The official declined to comment on a Tuesday speech by Chen Shui-bian, president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), who stated that Taiwanese military intelligence now counts 1,328 Chinese missiles deployed within range of Taiwan, an increase of more than 300 from earlier estimates.
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The China missile buildup has drawn no criticism from the Bush administration, which appears to have shifted its policy away from supporting Taiwan to backing communist-ruled mainland China.
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month echoed Beijing in calling Taiwan’s plan for a vote on United Nations membership as “provocative.” By contrast, Miss Rice and other administration officials have said nothing about the missile buildup, which the Pentagon says is designed for a massive “decapitation” strike against Taiwan in any future conflict.
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Defense officials said the policy tilt toward Beijing is due to the growing power of pro-China and anti-Taiwan policy and intelligence officials located at key posts within the National Security Council staff, the State Department, Treasury Department and within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

TAIPEI (AP) – Taiwan’s opposition presidential candidate warned President Chen Shui-bian on Tuesday that pushing for a referendum on United Nations membership could bring the island disaster.The referendum, to take place in tandem with a presidential election in March, will ask Taiwanese voters whether they would support an application to join the U.N. as Taiwan rather than under its official title, the Republic of China.

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Authorities closed the mausoleum of Taiwan’s late dictator Chiang Kai-shek yesterday as part of the ruling party’s vigorous campaign to diminish the legacy of the late leader.The Defense Ministry ordered the guards to pull out and closed the spacious mausoleum in Taoyuan in northern Taiwan, shutting out dozens of people hoping to pay their respects.Chiang fled to Taiwan and ruled the island with an iron fist after his Nationalists were defeated by Mao Zedong’s communists on the mainland in 1949. His 1975 burial in the mausoleum was meant to be temporary – until the Nationalists could one day return to rule the mainland.

On Sunday, President Chen Shui-bian told a political rally that closing the mausoleum would save taxpayers money.

But the move also comes amid a campaign by Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party to wipe out the late leader’s legacy. Authorities have renamed the Chiang Kai-shek international airport and park commemorating Chiang in the capital, Taipei.

DPP officials say the democratic island should stop honoring a dictator. But many members of the Nationalist Party – now the main opposition – say Chiang blocked a communist invasion and contributed to Taiwan’s security and economic development.

Chen’s government had planned to rebury Chiang’s remains at a military cemetery near Taipei. Some of his relatives objected, saying Chiang should be buried in his hometown in China’s eastern Zhejiang Province. But other Nationalists have objected to a burial on the mainland as long as the political standoff continues with China.

TAIPEI (AFP) – Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian on Tuesday snubbed a peace overture made by China, saying Taipei would never sign what he called a “surrender agreement” based on Beijing‘s “one-China” principle.

Chinese President Hu Jintao made the offer on Monday in his keynote speech at the opening of the Communist Party’s five-yearly Congress, but insisted independence for the island would never be tolerated.

“Since Hu Jintao still demands ‘one China’ as a precondition, this would be a surrender agreement rather than a peace agreement,” Chen said ….

TAIPEI (AFP) – Taiwan flexed its military muscles Wednesday, showing off two home-developed missiles in a rare parade seen as a reminder to China that it has the weaponry to defend itself.

In a televised National Day address, President Chen Shui-bian said China’s own military build-up posed a threat to world peace, and urged it to withdraw nearly 1,000 ballistic and cruise missiles aimed at the island.

Peace and Freedom note: Earlier this year President Hu Jintao of China traveled to several African nations, making deals for oil, gas and minerals all along the way. As long as China refuses to admit that Taiwan is an independent nation and the people and leadership of taiwan refuse to act like some state belonging to China, these ugly disagreements will continue.

By Joseph Curl and David R. Sands
The Washington Times
September 7, 2007

Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday told President Bush that the next two years will be a time of “high danger” for Taiwan, as the island republic prepares again to apply for a seat in the United Nations.

The U.S. and Chinese presidents made an unusual joint appeal against a planned Taiwanese referendum on the U.N. bid after a bilateral talk on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific regional summit here. Beijing considers Taiwan part of its territory, and Washington has long urged both sides to avoid moves that would upset the present diplomatic stalemate.